


March Inexorable

by vulcansmirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pon Farr, TOS Episode: s01e28 The City on the Edge of Forever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:37:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcansmirk/pseuds/vulcansmirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once every seven years, Vulcans fall prey to their baser instincts. Once in a lifetime, a motley starship crew takes on the foe that never stops fighting. And once in approximately never, your friendly neighborhood CMO gets shipped off to Earth in the year 1930. Luck be your lady tonight -- you're gonna need her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	March Inexorable

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration for the title comes from "The Inexorable March of Time" by the Farewell Circuit. Inspiration for the beginning sequence comes from the Original Series episode "The Naked Time."

_When his father exited the transporter room, Spock spent an unjustifiably long time standing on the pad in silence. There was something in the air here, in this spot—words failed to describe it. It was a... buzzing, almost. Sparks seemed to skip down along Spock’s fingers and across his palms, sending a jolt through each and every psionic receptor, hundreds of electrical impulses for every square millimeter of skin. He decided that it was potential energy; the air molecules in this spot had been interrupted in their transition from the ship to the surface of Vulcan, and they still fervently desired to make the journey, but the path was no longer open. Spock tried not to imagine the sparks as errant molecules of his mother’s body, a few scattered cells transported before her signal was lost._

_Not until he had exhausted every logical excuse did Spock finally take his leave of that place. When he crossed into the corridor, he found Nyota waiting for him._

_“Spock.” He flinched at the delicacy of her tone, reeled away from the implied epithet._

_“As I have previously informed you, Nyota, I am fine,” said Spock._ Imprecise, _he thought._

_“That’s vague,” echoed Nyota. “Suspiciously so, given that you nearly choked a man to death not an hour ago.”_

_Spock pressed past her, making no reply._

_“Spock._ Spock.” _Nyota grasped Spock’s arm, halting his progress. He stood motionless, refusing to meet her eye. “Listen, I know... I know you’re not used to—that you don’t like talking about these things. But I’m worried. Your mother just... and you wouldn’t talk about it, and then you nearly offed Kirk. Now, as much as he deserved it for all the things he said, you’re not a killer. I’m worried about you.”_

_Nyota’s grip on Spock’s arm shifted, became softer. Spock felt his mind flee from it, crazed as a wounded animal._

_“Let me help,” she said, small._

_Spock extricated himself as gently as he could from Nyota’s touch._

_“I have spoken to my father,” he informed her. “As this is a grief that he and I share, I believe such an exchange was appropriate. Additionally, I feel it has given me all I require to work through the emotions with which my mother’s passing has left me. I understand and appreciate your perceived need to assist me, but as I am sure you are aware, I would prefer to complete the process on my own.”_

_Nyota looked up at him, pursing her lips. Her eyes projected a hurt Spock knew he could not have prevented, though he tried as much as he could to be kind, to spare her of this. He knew how it pained her, the distance he insisted upon between them._

_He did not want to break down in front of her. He did not want to break down at all. He wished never to invite such vulnerability into his psychological landscape; damn James Kirk for forcing it upon him._

_But more importantly, Nyota was wrong, and her incorrect assumptions had the potential to cause her harm. What Spock felt now was not sadness. It was rage._

~*~

The Captain made a point of informing anyone who would listen that at any given moment in time, he knew everything that was happening on his ship. Usually, he even believed it, though the doctor told him again and again that “saying so is damn stupid and believing it is even stupider.” In this particular instance, though, the Captain must likely cede defeat to Dr. McCoy—he had remained blissfully unaware that any situation had arisen aboard the _Enterprise_ until Mr. Sulu showed up on the bridge half-undressed and brandishing a rapier. It was very clear, then, that whatever had killed the scientists on Psi 2000 now posed a threat to the ship, and if they did not act quickly, the whole crew would be found centuries from now piled into the showers fully-clothed.

Kirk shot up out of the captain's chair, shouted, “Spock, take the conn,” and ran to intercept Sulu at the turbolift. The pilot, before abandoning his shirt on one of the ship’s lower decks, had abandoned his post, and now seemed adamant on engaging the entire bridge crew in a massive, swashbuckling pirate fight. His eyes were wild, his hair on end, and his bare chest coated in a thin sheen of sweat.

According to Dr. McCoy, they had already lost one crewman to this ailment. He seemed to believe that it was a complex chain of water molecules that induced a state of lowered inhibitions, similar to severe inebriation, until the accompanying tachycardia caused a loss of life. As a young lieutenant Spock hardly knew began belting an Irish serenade over the shipwide speakers, he deemed the first part of the description accurate.

Sulu seemed unperturbed by the singing. He grinned recklessly at his Captain and aimed two hard thrusts at his chest.

“Sulu!” Kirk dodged, hand flying up to block the swordpoint before he visibly realized _swordpoint_ and snatched his hand away. “Come on, that’s enough. You’re gonna kill someone.”

The pilot cackled. The painfully off-key strains of “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” washed over the ship.

Kirk tried to sidle around Sulu, but found himself blocked. Sulu’s blade, inches from Kirk’s nose, gleamed in the bright white lights of the bridge.

“Wha’s th’matter, _Captain?”_ Sulu grinned. “’Fraid I’ll kick yer ass?”

“Mr. Sulu, move aside. That’s an order.”

“No way! Y’gotta beat me first.”

Up to this point, Spock had simply observed the proceedings. Now, however, he judged the circumstances to have exceeded the Captain’s control. He watched as Kirk contemplated the slim passage between Sulu and the bulkhead; though Spock had noted the increasingly unruly length of his Captain’s hair, he thought this moment not the best one for a haircut.

Sulu prowled forward with surprising precision, considering his inebriation, but his grin grew wider and his eyes grew wilder with each step. So focused was he upon the Captain in front of him that he failed to notice the science officer circling behind. One moment, Sulu crouched before his Captain, preparing to lunge, and the next, Spock's hand gripped his shoulder and he went down, his blade clattering down after him. When Kirk’s eyes met Spock’s, he seemed unduly surprised.

“Spock,” Kirk gasped. “Thank god.”

“You are welcome,” Spock said absently. Kirk huffed a laugh. “Shall we go?”

The Captain nodded, and he and his first entered the turbolift.

“Mr. Chekov, you have the conn,” Spock called behind them.

As the doors slid shut, Kirk beamed. “That’s one hell of a trick, Spock. You gotta teach me that.”

“The attempt would be illogical,” said Spock immediately. “With your human physiology, you lack the strength required to achieve unconsciousness.”

Kirk laughed. “Well, gee. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I am merely stating a fact.”

The Captain sighed, shaking his head and smiling. He looked up and met Spock’s eye; Spock concentrated on maintaining an ascetic expression, but on looking at him, Kirk’s smile softened. Spock found he could not look away.

The intercom buzzed. “Sickbay to Captain Kirk,” came McCoy’s voice.

Kirk punched the intercom button. “Kirk here. What is it, Bones?”

“Well, it took a hell of a lot of doing, so I hope you’re happy,” griped the doctor, “but I think I’ve found your cure.”

Kirk grinned. “Bones! That is _fantastic_ news! You’re a miracle-worker!”

“Damn right,” grumbled McCoy.

“Start administering to all affected crew,” said Kirk. “Will it inoculate the rest of us?”

“We can give it a shot.”

“Alright then, start shipwide administration.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.” He only sounded moderately insubordinate. Spock considered it an improvement.

Kirk punched the intercom button again, then turned to Spock. “Do we have time to stop by sickbay and get inoculated?”

“Negative, Captain.” Spock joined his hands tamely behind his back. “At his present pace, Mr. Scott will break through the bulkhead in less than three minutes. We have nineteen minutes before our downward trajectory becomes impossible to reverse, and we are unable to prevent a collision with the planet. We will need what little time we have to neutralize the threat posed by Lieutenant Riley and repair the damage he has done to the engines.”

Kirk nodded. “Thought as much. Well, I hope you’re up-to-date on your immunizations, Commander.”

The turbolift came to a halt, and the doors slid open. Kirk and Spock strode briskly down the corridor, a faint hiss directing them to the present location of Mr. Scott. The chief engineer had a phaser trained on the bulkhead, and was cutting a neat hole through which he could access the wires that controlled the door into the engineering deck. The angry orange beam of the phaser and the momentary sparks it threw cast the engineer’s face into sharp relief.

“How’s it coming, Scotty?” Kirk called in lieu of a greeting.

Scotty mumbled, “Nearly there.” He never so much as looked up from his hands.

“How much longer, do you think?”

Scotty paused, just long enough to level a decidedly unimpressed look at his commanding officer. A bead of sweat dripped from his brow.

“The more you pester me, laddie, the longer this’ll take,” he chided, then turned wordlessly back to his work.

Kirk muttered an apology.

“At this rate, I would estimate that Mr. Scott will penetrate the bulkhead in fifty-six seconds,” Spock offered. Scotty failed either to hear or to care.

With a curt nod, Kirk stepped back and reached behind him for his phaser, turning the dial until the point glowed blue. “Phaser on stun, Mr. Spock.” His first copied the movement.

Kirk moved beside the door and flattened himself against the wall, phaser held ready. On the opposite side of the door, Spock mirrored him.

“When we get in there, Spock, you and Scotty get straight over to the engines. I’ll handle Riley.”

“Understood,” Spock replied.

There was a small clatter. Scotty laid the newly-liberated piece of bulkhead carefully at his feet, then reached a hand into the hole he had made. His eyes met Kirk’s. “Ready, Captain?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Scotty turned back to the bulkhead, peering inside to find the right wire. Kirk met Spock’s eye once more, and, incongruously, he smirked.

“Spock,” he said. “Why so serious?”

Spock angled a single eyebrow. Kirk’s grin widened. The door slid open, and, smile fading, the Captain nodded once. He and his first stepped inside.

Riley did not appear aware at first that the room had been breached—the lieutenant continued to warble over the intercom uninterrupted, his voice echoing in the rafters with a metallic edge. He sat in a chair at the engineering console, spinning continuously in the middle of the main walkway. Beyond him was the control module for the warp core, whose panel had been flung aside to expose the internal wiring. Spock was reasonably certain that the module was not meant to spark that way.

As the lieutenant stood in direct opposition to his and Mr. Scott’s objective, Spock deemed it acceptable to bend his Captain’s orders somewhat. He advanced on the lieutenant, stepping silently, free hand outstretched toward Riley’s shoulder.

Riley’s revolution and subsequent awareness of the situation was not altogether unexpected; however, the sharpness of Riley’s reflexes came as a shock. Spock had estimated approximately sixty-three milliseconds more time than what was actually available for him to close the distance between his own hand and the lieutenant’s shoulder, and in that time the lieutenant established an ironclad grip on Spock’s wrist, holding him in place.

“You wouldn’ be tryin’ ta knack me out, now, wouldja, Mr. Spack?” said the lieutenant, affecting a thick accent and grinning toothily.

Spock began to feel a peculiar twinge along his wrist, where Riley touched him. It was an itch, almost, as if a bug were crawling slowly up his forearm beneath his science blues. He wrenched his hand out of the man’s grip. Riley spun away, cackling.

“Dammit, Spock, I told you to leave him to me!” Kirk swore as he careened past Spock to intercept the lieutenant’s merry winding path. In Spock’s peripheral awareness, he registered Riley’s guttural retort as the Captain delivered a knockout blow; at the fore lingered this peculiar itch.

Spock was staring numbly at his hand when Mr. Scott tapped him on the arm.

“Let’s take a look at the damage, Mr. Spock,” sighed the engineer. Spock snapped to attention.

Mr. Scott crossed to the control module’s open panel, and Spock followed. The two of them leaned in to take a look—Spock’s skin felt electric where it passed close to Mr. Scott, and he reared back infinitesimally, trying not to sneer. He had felt the engineer’s thoughts _(How?_ ), and they were all jumbled clanging and turning cogs, like the inside of a half-built clock. Spock felt a wave of disgust, an influx of acid in his stomach, and it took him by surprise. He shook himself.

The module, when Spock forced himself to look, appeared remarkably undamaged in spite of its alarming behavior. The only damage Spock could make out was in a single wire, a wire whose smooth blue stream had been broken—torn, it appeared, and savagely, for the ends were ragged and hung limp, half-freed from the brackets that kept the wires running vertically through the module—and was now spitting those ominous sparks.

Scotty stood speechless. A pall hung over the room.

Kirk walked up then, and Spock winced at his every footstep. Each one was like thunder in the silence.

“Damage report, Scotty.” He could not have been closer than fourteen inches, but Spock imagined that Kirk’s breath ghosted over his neck, that Kirk’s voice purred in his ear. His eyes widened.

“We... We can’t...” Mr. Scott sounded stricken. “Captain, we’ve lost her.”

Kirk paused no more than a beat. “Well, what’s wrong? Just that little wire? We can fix that, can’t we?”

“Well, yes, sir, but that’s not the problem.” Scotty’s voice met Spock’s ears as a whine, his vocal cords rubbing together like two taut lyre strings, and Spock felt an impatient growl lurking at the back of his throat. But Kirk had leaned closer, misty tendrils of consciousness sprouting from his skin and reaching across the narrow divide, rendering Spock unable to move.

“The engine is _off,”_ Scotty continued. Spock could barely hear him over the ocean in Kirk’s head. “That was the power feed Riley pulled. I’ll need at least thirty minutes to start her up again.”

Kirk leaned to the side to grip the edge of the module’s gaping chest, knuckles white. The movement brought him within a mere few inches of Spock, who felt his throat constrict and his breathing cease. The Captain’s warm, clean, sunkissed-pine smell wafted across his first officer, who bit back a harsh, animal breath.

“Is there _anything_ else we can do?” Kirk implored. “Come on, Scotty, I need you to think.”

“Well, I... There is one thing we could try, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“What is it?”

“It’s... Sir, when matter and antimatter come into direct contact, it causes a massive explosion—you know the one—that, were it to occur inside the engine, would destroy the ship and anything within a ten-parsec radius, which is why we keep them separated in the core mechanism. But if we can control the contact, make the result an _im_ plosion rather than an explosion, we may be able to restart the engines instantaneously. But sir, that’s a _big_ if, and it’s only a theory, it’s never been done before—”

“Do it.”

“Captain—”

“Scotty.” Kirk reached around to grasp the engineer’s shoulder, a gesture of solidarity, Spock knew. But the Captain’s chest was very nearly flush with Spock’s back now, and the fire in his veins was sowing the seeds of panic in his mind. Spock felt shaky, and angry for it.

“We have no other choice, Scotty,” the Captain said. “If you don’t try this now, we’re dead for sure. At least this way, we have a chance.”

Scotty sighed, mumbling, “A slim one.”

The Captain patted his chief engineer’s shoulder with a smile. “I trust you.” Then he turned, finally, to his first officer. “Spock, you stay with Scotty. Help him however you can.”

Spock struggled to compose himself. “Captain,” he choked out, and only then did Kirk genuinely look at him. “Captain, I think it would be better if you called Dr. Marcus down to assist Mr. Scott.”

A look of intense concern crossed Kirk’s face. “Spock, what...”

“Captain.” Spock met Kirk’s eye with an urgent determination. “Dr. Marcus. Now. We have limited time.” _Ten minutes, forty-two seconds,_ supplied a miraculously calm voice in the back of Spock’s mind.

After a gaping instant, Kirk loped over to the intercom on the wall, punched the button with slightly more force than necessary, and ordered Dr. Marcus to engineering. Within seconds, he was back at Spock’s side.

Kirk reached for Spock’s elbow. “Spock, are you—”

Spock wrenched his arm out of the Captain’s reach. “I am fine,” he spat. _Fine has variable definitions,_ echoed his own voice. _Fine is unacceptable._ A warm, sharp-edged smell, like flowers beneath the Vulcan sun, wafted over him, and Spock thought of his mother. He wanted to gag.

“Bridge to Keptin Kewrk,” Mr. Chekov’s harried voice rang from the intercom. Kirk glanced quickly toward it, then back at his first, before half-jogging to the speaker once again and punching the button.

“What is it, Chekov?”

“Ten meenutes left, sir. We need you on ze bridge.”

Kirk sighed. “Thank you, Chekov, I’ll be right there.” He punched the button again, raising his eyes and fixing Spock with a troubled stare. For a moment, Spock wanted to throttle him. He choked down the impulse.

Spock was reasonably certain at this point that he had acquired the affliction that plagued Mr. Sulu and Mr. Riley. Kirk seemed to be of the same mind. The Captain crossed to his first and, despite Spock’s shying away, draped Spock’s arm across his own shoulders and snaked his arm around Spock’s waist. Spock’s skin caught fire at the contact. Emotion spread from the flames like poison, disseminating through his bloodstream: worry, determination, something like need. Spock shuddered.

“Come on, Spock,” Kirk grunted as he hauled Spock toward the door. “We’re taking you to sickbay.”

“No. Captain.” Spock struggled; Kirk only tightened his grip, which sent lightning bolts into Spock’s spine and through his ribs. “Captain, we do not have time...”

“Spock, we both know Vulcans are lightweights,” said Kirk with only half a joke in his tone. “Alcohol affects you much faster than it would a human. And what about this super-water? How long do you think that’ll take? I’ve already lost one crewmember today, I won’t lose you, too. I need you.”

Spock wanted to protest. Actually, he wanted to rage and scream and kick and wail, and it was for precisely this reason that he clenched his teeth and tried very hard to breathe through the lightning in his lungs.

With a final nod to Mr. Scott and a murmured “good luck,” Kirk hugged Spock’s trembling form closer, taking on a greater percentage of Spock’s body weight— _and his hand was like ice, the line of his chest like hellfire_ —as he bore his first back out into the corridor. The Vulcan’s internal counter had ceased to function at nine minutes, thirty-seven seconds; time now was like wind, and rain, and the distant echoes of thunder. Kirk hefted both of them down the hall.

There was no skin-to-skin contact between Kirk and Spock, but it felt as though Kirk’s arm had sunk inches-deep into Spock’s musculature. He could feel the virus reaching, stretching, striving to touch the Captain as a sun-starved plant might strive to touch the light. And Spock heard the specter of his Captain’s thoughts, felt them in soft strokes, like waves breaking over his mind, warm and urgent but blessedly calm; he breathed, and every breath brought more of Kirk’s own sunlit tang into his lungs. Spock looked hazily upon his commanding officer, his hair spun gold and his eyes living, blooming sapphires in the clear white light, and thought, _You are the sun itself._

The thought was like a knife twisting in his gut. Spock felt such devotion, such relentless warmth, and it spilled from his heart like liquid starlight to bathe the man, the human, at his side. He thought of his father, and his heritage, and he was ashamed. Cripplingly ashamed. He wondered if it was this foolish, indulgent exercise of emotion that had led his planet to destruction. He wondered if this was what had killed his mother.

She had loved him, after all. She had loved him, and she had trusted him. And what haunted Spock, what lurked in his waking mind as a seething black mist, what loomed in his dreams as an impossible lightning storm whose heart was a fathomless void— _like his own, he thought, for there was such darkness inside him, such emptiness, and he could not fill it, and he dared not try_ —was the thought that he could have saved her if only he had held onto her hand.

Her trust had been woefully misplaced.

Spock’s breathing came out ragged. He could not taste the sun anymore. He felt his fingers entwine themselves in Kirk’s command gold, heard his own pitiful voice as though from a distance. “Jim.” And the Captain stopped, he thought, knelt, tried to look Spock in the eye. Spock’s vision blurred, dimmed, blackened around the edges.

With perfect clarity, Spock felt the moment Kirk’s hand rose up to cup his face, palm flat against his cheek, cool fingers stroking his neck. He heard the icy beast in his veins roar in triumph, felt it writhing, elongating, extending itself, intent to blot out the sun. Spock felt the moment Kirk’s foundations began to crumble.

Spock leapt away, but too late. Always too late.

The Captain looked concerned at first, and vaguely hurt. Then a perplexed look fell across his face, and he raised his hand and stared at it wonderingly. Spock’s stomach dropped at the sight. For an instant, he saw that hand as it had been pressed against glass. For an instant, he felt eviscerated.

Spock looked upon his Captain, and suddenly, violently, he was disgusted. Bile churned in his stomach, and ice speared his chest, and he could see no colors, only black and white and hateful gray.

And he was as his ancestors were—uncontrolled, illogical, unchained. He felt the sting of a threat in his muscles, and he allowed it to propel him forward. He tangled his fingers again in that command gold, but in this colorless world, it was only silver; he lifted this frail man from his feet and slammed him back into the wall, heard with satisfaction the crack of a skull against the bulkhead; he glared into deep, frightened wells of blue, but they were slate, and Spock felt nothing.

“Spock—”

The human struggled. Spock’s fist dug with ever increasing force into his solar plexus.

“Spock...”

The human’s blindly flailing arms came down on Spock’s shoulders again and again, but he felt nothing. He felt cold. The force of the blows began to weaken; the arms grew still. The human’s chest heaved with every breath.

Spock felt fingers gripping the hair at his nape. He saw desperation in slate-colored eyes.

He should have felt nothing. But he could not prevent the melding of minds that occurred then, for he had forgotten how. So Spock began to feel a panic that was not his own, the course of alien blood through alien veins, the chaos of evolutionary reflexes warring one another— _fight or run? flee or kill?—_ and warring again with the desperate plea of higher planes of thought— _don’t hurt him, don’t leave him, I can’t, I can’t_ ; and beneath all of this, in a bottomless pool of blue and gold, was a love that stretched like the curve of the Milky Way itself, curling around stars, planets, people. There was certainty there, incongruously. There was trust.

“Spock,” Kirk gasped. “She needs us. Both of us.” And his brow furrowed, and his voice quavered, and wells of sapphire bloomed from gray. Spock’s chest ached. “I can’t do this without you.”

Spock’s grief was ice, sheets and shards that bit and cut and glittered.

Something rose up then, as dark and as ancient and as stifling as the deep purple night on the red plains of Vulcan. It licked up from Spock’s core and consumed the ice, swallowed it whole, like a snake would a mouse. Gradually, Spock’s grip loosened, and as color leached slowly back into his vision, his palm flattened on Kirk’s chest. The Captain found his feet again, but his hand did not retreat from the hair at the base of Spock’s neck. Both of them breathed stiffly.

As Spock grappled with his mind, wrenching it away from Kirk’s, he caught one last whiff of his Captain’s headspace, and it was clear. Clear and blue and shining once again.

Spock should have felt clear, too, he thought. But he did not. The ice, that foreign beast, had been replaced with something else, something altogether too familiar.

He knew what it was, of course. He had hoped to be spared of it.

Spock’s heart refused to slow, and his eyes remained fixed on the pulse point in Kirk’s neck. He felt electricity beneath Kirk’s hands. But he forced himself to take a long, shaky breath, and wrenched himself away from Kirk, pulling his uniform straight. He met his Captain’s eye.

“Six minutes, twelve seconds remaining,” Spock rattled off without preamble. “I believe we are needed on the bridge.”

Kirk, pulling his own uniform straight, huffed a laugh. “I believe, Mr. Spock, you’re right.” He gazed at Spock with a half-cocked, somewhat exhausted smile. “Well, come on, then. We’d better get up there.”

Spock merely nodded, unsmiling, hands clenched tightly behind his back. As the two of them set off at a brisk pace for the turbolift, something inside him churned.  


End file.
